Identity Crisis

Six games into the season, Harvard's women's hoops team appears to be suffering from a case of collective amnesia. They don't know who they are and are desperately searching for an identity.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Harvard's returning players were supposed to be enough to make the team an Ivy favorite. As fall practice began and everyone discovered the immense talent that the incoming freshmen possessed, a conference title seemed an easy task.

Instead, the season has so far been filled with the disappointment of a perplexing 1-5 start. Last night's ugly loss to Central Connecticut State--hardly a hoops powerhouse--seemed to be the last straw for Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

"[There was] nothing good about this game," Delaney-Smith said. "They should be ashamed of themselves."

In one sense, the preseason predictions for this team are right on. Harvard is literally loaded with talent. In fact, there's simply too much of it to go around. In short, Harvard has a chemistry problem.

For all of its skill, the team has no identity. Harvard's impressive individual players have tended to cancel each other out rather than complement each other. In this case, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.

From the opening tipoff against the Blue Devils, Harvard looked like a confused team that was so uncertain of which weapon to use that it forgot to make the kill.

Harvard's starters were taller than their Blue Devil counterparts at every position. Thus logic dictated that the Crimson pound the ball inside to create easy shots. In particular, the Crimson should go to its most talented inside player, freshman Hana Peljto.

Sounds simple enough, but the shots wouldn't fall. Peljto touched the ball down low on nearly every Crimson possession early in the game. Her efforts netted her three points by halftime, on a lackluster 1-of-7 shooting effort.

So Harvard decided to try something different. Shortly into the game, Harvard abandoned its zone defense, designed to maximize its size advantage, and switched to a man-to-man full-court press, pushing the ball up the floor at every possible opportunity.

The problem: successful pressing teams are built around quickness, and Harvard's biggest strength is its size. The Crimson was so much better than most of the CCSU squad that the press should've worked anyway. But the only success Harvard found with its up-tempo game was turning the ball over through bad passes and generally sloppy play.

Meanwhile, the Blue Devils' lead steadily grew. After Jenn Monti's three tied the game at 20, Harvard went cold, missing shot after shot as CCSU ended the half on a 13-4 run.

From there, the bottom fell out. After the listless opening to the second half, Delaney-Smith called a timeout and pulled all five starters, in effect throwing her hands up in disgust at the inability of her team to make use of its athletic skill.

"They were horrible," Delaney-Smith said. "They weren't ready to play in the first half or in the second half."

Late in the game, Harvard finally found the right formula. Playing with a mix-mash lineup of two formerly unknown freshman, Monti, sophomore starter Kate Ides, and a backup center, the Crimson went on a 14-1 run, pulling to 67-65 with under two minutes left.

Ironically, the comeback might have been the worst thing possible in Harvard's search for team chemistry.

That's because Harvard's resurgence came with its best active player Peljto on the bench. For all of her talent, Peljto seems to slow down the offense. Everyone on the team knows how talented she is, so they pass her the ball whenever possible. Not only does this limit the rest of the players' effectiveness, but when Peljto struggles as she did last night--the entire offense stalls.

With Peljto out, the offense flowed. The ball went in and out of the post, players moved around, and freshman Jenn Lee began sinking shots from the perimeter while classmate Tricia Tubridy dominated the inside.

In other words, the comeback demonstrated that Harvard's backups could outplay CCSU, and, for the time being, Harvard plays its best when its best player doesn't play.

Worse yet, the emergence of Lee and Tubridy means that the team, which couldn't figure out what to do with the talent it had, now has to deal with two more productive players.

But there's still hope.

Talent is innate, but chemistry can be taught. If Delaney-Smith finds the right starting lineup and rotation, if Peljto starts blending in with the offense, and if the Crimson discover an identity, then they have the talent to be even better than advertised.

And the team eagerly awaits the return of captain center Melissa Johnson--who is now recovered from knee surgery but missed last night's game due to a Rhodes Scholarship interview. Johnson should give the team a vocal leader to rally around.

In short, things should get better. And if and when they do, everyone will forget the early-season struggles. The final grade on this season is still months away.

But for now, Harvard is flunking chemistry.